COMPUTACENTER gave investors a pleasant surprise yesterday by stating it is "well ahead" of forecasts for the current financial year.

Profitability and earnings per share are on track to beat full-year expectations, the IT supplier said, sending its share price up as much as seven per cent yesterday, before closing 4.7 per cent up at 1,605p.

The trading update for the 11 months to the end of November came ahead of December, usually Computacenter's busiest month of the year.

The FTSE 250-listed technology company said while it has a lot of work to do in December, it has a clearer picture on how the business will perform.

"The strong 2019 performance is coming from Computacenter's established businesses and, in the second half of the year, from the acquired business in the US which is now performing in line with our expectations following a difficult start to the year," the board said.

It added that the IT firm has not suffered a blow from existing difficult contracts that hurt its second half performance in 2018.

In fact, they "continue to perform in line with, or slightly ahead of our expectations", the company said.

The firm will next update the market on 23 January ahead of the publication of its full-year results.

(c) 2019 City A.M., source Newspaper